Monday, August 30, 2010

Bomb in Tampico and Another Mayor slain in Tamaulipas

At least two people were wounded when a bomb exploded at the police headquarters in Tampico, a city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, officials said Sunday.

The bomb went off around midnight Saturday at the building near city hall.

The blast destroyed the guard booth at the entrance to the police headquarters, wounding an officer and another person, a police spokesman said.

The two victims were taken to a nearby clinic in a police car and treated by doctors.

Officers chased the suspected bombers and engaged them in a shootout, but no arrests were made, the police spokesman said.

At least 15 people were wounded in separate grenade attacks on Saturday in Reynosa, located across the border from McAllen, Texas, the municipal police department said.

The first attack occurred on Colon street, where two grenades were thrown into a bar just after midday.

The second incident happened about two hours later, when a grenade went off on Morelos and Matias Canales streets in downtown Reynosa.

Six people wounded at the bar were hospitalized, while three people wounded in the second grenade attack had to be hospitalized.

The other people wounded in the attacks were treated at the scene.

Two car bombs exploded early Friday at the Televisa network’s office and the municipal transit department in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas, but no one was wounded.

Marines engaged a group of gunmen in a shootout on Friday in Tampico as school was letting out, leaving two children dead and two adults wounded.

Mayor assassinated in Hidalgo, Tamauliapas

Unidentified gunmen murdered the mayor of a small town in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas where 72 migrants were massacred last week, a source in the state prosecutor's office said on Sunday.

'They've just killed the municipal president (mayor) of Hidalgo,' the source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, 46, was shot dead while he was driving his car, the source said. His four-year-old daughter was seriously wounded in the attack, the source said.

Leal Garcia had taken office in January 2008 and was supposed to step down on December 31. The town of 25,000 people is located 90km northwest of the state capital, Ciudad Victoria.

His predecessor was seriously wounded in an attack a year ago, and a police officer was killed in March in a machine-gun and grenade attack on the mayor's residence.

The state has been hit by five attacks involving explosives since the discovery on Tuesday of the bodies of 72 migrants who had been massacred at a Tamaulipas ranch, allegedly by a notoriously violent drug trafficking gang call Los Zetas.

Sicarios detonated explosive devices in Reynosa, at least one dead

More than 20 injured ad at least one person dead was the toll in two violent incidents in Reynosa. The first incident occurred in the streets J. B. Chapa and Colón at around noon yesterday where an about ten people were injured from the blast and one died from the injuries. At around 2pm another explosion was detonated on the streets of Canales y Morelos not far from city hall. An intense police presence was seen at the scene but no one was arrested.

The city government via Tweeter informed the public that the sicarios had used three grenades and resulted in 23 injured and one fatal. This prompted the temporary closure of the international bridge Hidalgo that seperates Reynosa with McAllen.